Holistic metrics applied to a practical supply chain study

In this article we present a practical example where the concept of Holistic Metrics (Feliz-Teixeira & Brito, 2006) is used as a way for sensing the results obtained in a simulation study related to the Portuguese enterprise GalpEnergia. Previously described in Feliz-Teixeira & Brito (2005), that case is used again in this article in order to demonstrate the practical value of the Holistic Metrics concept. This is basically a simple method for estimating or characterizing the behaviour of complex systems, in particular when these are studied throughout simulation. Instead of treating the complex output data obtained from this kind of system along the time domain, this perspective encourages analysts to represent such data in the frequency domain, somewhat as is adopted in Fourier Analysis and in Quantum Mechanics.